Bloomberg Philanthropies awards $1 million each to 24 cities in Mayors Challenge

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organisation founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced on 24 February 2026 the 24 winners of its sixth and largest Mayors Challenge, a competition that rewards local governments for practical innovations in public services. Each winning city hall receives $1 million, plus coaching, operational support and money to hire staff dedicated to carrying out the project. The winners were chosen from more than 630 applications; 50 finalists first spent months testing their ideas with residents before the final selection.

The winning cities span 20 countries and more than 35 million residents. Their projects reflect the everyday problems municipalities face. Cape Town will expand a pilot, first tested in the informal settlement of Dunoon, in which residents help design waste collection and greywater systems to cut illegal dumping. Lafayette, Louisiana, will repair failing private sewer lines at about half the cost of new construction, freeing up capacity for housing. Other winners include Boise, which will use city-owned geothermal energy to lower heating costs; Budapest, which will turn surplus food into meals for students and older people; Fukuoka in Japan, with services for residents living with dementia; Beira in Mozambique, which will move fishing families out of flood-prone areas; Netanya in Israel, with mobile play stations bringing early-childhood support to parks; and Medellín, Rio de Janeiro and South Bend, which will use AI to connect residents to food aid, health care and city services.

In the foundation's announcement, Bloomberg said the most effective city halls are bold and proactive, and that he looked forward to seeing the winners' ideas spread to other cities. Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said cleaning up informal settlements had vexed him and the city for years, while Lafayette mayor-president Monique Boulet noted that most of her city's sewer breaks occur on private property, where stormwater leaks overload public pipes and hold back growth.

The Mayors Challenge is part of Bloomberg's long-running support for local government innovation, which also includes training programmes for mayors and city data initiatives.